


Power at His Finger Tips

by Cornerofmadness



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, Gen, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:42:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 492
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26296618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerofmadness/pseuds/Cornerofmadness
Summary: His pride has brought him to a very ugly place and Roy has to decide where he goes from here.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6
Collections: Bite Sized Bits of Fic from 2020





	Power at His Finger Tips

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cozy_coffee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cozy_coffee/gifts).



> **Disclaimer:** Not mine, Hiromu Arakawa owns it
> 
> **Notes:** written for cozy_coffee for the prompt Any, any, the power of Fire

His fingers snap, his static glove creating a spark. Roy moved his hand by rote directing the fire, his mind numb to the power his flames gave him. He should have listened to Master Hawkeye. No wonder his alchemy mentor had guarded the secrets of flame alchemy so rabidly. He understood what his teenaged apprentice hadn’t. Fire was power. Now, a handful of years down the road, Roy understood all too well.

The Ishvalans he and his fellow Amestrians fought against loathed alchemists, thought what they did went against God. As the flames poured away from Roy’s hand, setting the market district of this small Ishvalan town ablaze, Roy understood their hatred. He empathized with it. The military had forged him into a monster. He didn’t want to be here in the desert killing these people who had done nothing to him but he was trapped. Worse, he had put the shackles on himself.

Only a few short years before, he’d been an idealistic cadet, filled with desire for power. He hadn’t joined the military for patriotic reasons. No, he had seen it as a stepping stone to better things. He wanted to be the best alchemist ever to live. He wanted his name in the history books. He wanted to inspire young alchemists to be like him.

Well, his name would be in the books. To the Amestrians, he was the Flame Alchemist, a hero. He knew he had been used on recruiting posters. To the Ishvalans, he would be remembered as a butcher. They couldn’t know he tried to aim his fire toward buildings not people but that was just him trying to ease his own battered conscience. His flames devoured all in their path. He tried to quit. He’d be shot as a traitor if he ran. He was barely into his twenties. He didn’t want his life to end so soon. None of this was fair. He never meant to be a weapon but Master Hawkeye had foreseen this. Roy knew he should have listened.

He snapped again, raising a wall of fire between the Amestrian soldiers and the retreating Ishvalans. Maybe it would give them cover enough to escape into the desert. Maybe no one would realize he was aiding and abetting the enemy. Roy didn’t have it in him to wantonly kill children and the elderly. That wasn’t being a soldier. It wasn’t being _human_.

As he watched the village burn, he panted hard under the hot sun and hotter flames. His fire was power. He would survive this. No one would ever learn the secrets of this alchemy. He would destroy the only written record of how to control fire. He would use his abilities to rise like smoke. One day he would be a leader. One day he’d be in a position to stop people from dying needlessly. He had to achieve that goal. If he couldn’t, then what was all this pain for?


End file.
